Friday, November 22

Tag: Africa Tech

Raise, a startup building Africa’s Carta, gets backing from 500 Startups
Start-ups

Raise, a startup building Africa’s Carta, gets backing from 500 Startups

As startups in Africa continue to grow and raise money at a ridiculous pace, so too will their cap tables expand. Most African startups’ bulk of VC money is from foreign investors, making it imperative for African startups to incorporate abroad, especially in the U.S. The processes for incorporation are quite complicated, and even though most founders still get the hang of it, they risk the chance of messing up their cap tables. For instance, some Nigerian startups are guilty of issuing preferred shares in naira and then canceling to issue dollar-denominated SAFEs when they get incorporated in the U.S. Raise, a startup building Africa’s Carta is tackling these challenges and has received backing from 500 Startups to scale its technology. Continue reading (Photo Credits: Raise...
The New Tech Era: job-killer or job-creator?
Trends

The New Tech Era: job-killer or job-creator?

At a time when Jumia, Africa’s biggest e-commerce company, is preparing to raise several hundred million dollars on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Mauritius-based IHS Towers communications giant is doing the same, it seems beside the point to ask whether “Tech” is good for the continent. Like Kenya-based Safaricom and the pioneering M-Pesa mobile money service, these companies are at the vanguard of Africa’s technological revolution. They are making money for their shareholders but more importantly they – and a generation of start-ups across the continent – are putting African engineers, innovators and mathematicians on the world stage, showcasing ideas and systems that other regions are rushing to copy. Norway is trying to keep up with Kenya in the mobile-money stakes. Yet...